Iñaki Bonillas in conversation with Joana Hurtado Matheu: Watching from a crooked angle: A conversation with Iñaki Bonillas, Editorial Concreta, 2016
Thomas McDonough: Iñaki Bonillas, A Heap of Broken Images, 2012
Tom McDonough: Iñaki Bonillas, Artforum magazine, Nov 2010
Rubén Gallo: Iñaki Bonillas, Poliester Magazine, Verano 2000

Iñaki Bonillas, Los ojos: niño #9 [The Eyes: Child #9], 2010, detail / Silvia Gruner, Viva cautivo, sea feliz, 2015, detail

Iñaki Bonillas , Silvia Gruner
»Ver«

Mexico City, May 25, 2024 - August 24, 2024

Galerie Nordenhake is pleased to present Ver, an exhibition that introduces a dialogue between the work of Iñaki Bonillas (Mexico City, 1981) and Silvia Gruner (Mexico City, 1959), with pieces created between 2005 and 2023. The practice of both artists is based on long-term research that touches on the production, reproduction, and circulation of images. This exhibition focuses on their analysis, from different perspectives, of the act of looking, the technologies we use to do so, and their spatial, bodily, and conceptual implications.

Silvia Gruner has been one of the most relevant artists in Mexican contemporary art since the early nineties. Initially trained as a sculptor, from an early stage she used video, photography, and installation as artistic research strategies. Her projects explore space, whether physical, personal or ideological, in order to search for breaking points, ways of looking that are different from what is commonly assumed. In doing so, she unravels the points where ideological constructs do not hold. Likewise, she operates back and forth between a humor that explores the absurd, and a perusal abjection that one finds even in the most everyday details. Some of her pieces in this exhibition are shown for the first time, although they were created some years ago.

Iñaki Bonillas, also a crucial figure in Mexican contemporary art since the nineties, conducts in-depth research in different photographic archives. Through the reuse and visual intervention—not physical—of images taken therefrom, he explores the history of photography, its forms of reproduction, and how we relate to images. This touches on personal, family and historical memories, and the ways in which art history has been constructed. Bonillas' work is in constant dialogue with different traditions of conceptualism, some going as far back as Marcel Duchamp. This is manifested both in the use of similar strategies, and in allusions to specific works by conceptual artists.

The exhibition began with an invitation to the artists to create a dialogue between their works, seeking points in common and opening up their possible readings. They sought to expand the scope and references of the works they selected. From the beginning, the dialogues they proposed were specifically designed in relation to the gallery space, which is very noticeable in the exhibition layout. Both their work strategies and the final project they proposed are, in the end, an exercise in the cutting and confection of the gaze.

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Artists, Iñaki Bonillas and Silvia Gruner talk about "Ver", their most recent exhibition at Galerie Nordenhake Mexico City.

Installation view, Ver, 2024

Iñaki Bonillas, Los ojos: niño #9 [“The Eyes: Child #9”], 2010, Photogravure on cotton paper (Somerset, 300 gr), 49.5 x 49.5 cm, 19 1/2 x 19 1/2 in

Silvia Gruner, Viva cautivo, sea feliz, 2015, Digital print on cotton paper, paper: 54 x 74 cm, 21 1/4 x 29 1/8 in, frame: 70 x 105 cm, 27 1/2 x 41 3/8 in

Iñaki Bonillas, Fotografías delineadas, 2005, Twenty-five silver gelatin prints on cotton paper, twenty five pencil drawings on cotton paper, one photographic album with twenty-five prints, 28 x 35.5cm each [11 x 14 in each], Album: 26 x 27 cm [10.2 x 10.6 in] (closed), 26 x 55 cm [10.2 x 21.7 in] (opened)

Detail of Fotografías delineadas

Detail of Fotografías delineadas

Installation view, Ver, 2024

Silvia Gruner, Trofeo: un viaje parasitario, 2013, 35 digital prints on cotton paper, 53 x 71.4 cm, 20 7/8 x 28 1/8 in

Detail of Trofeo: un viaje parasitario

Installation view, Ver, 2024

Iñaki Bonillas, La idea del Norte: hielos, 2014, Set of 40 digital prints paper (Hahnemühle rice paper, 100 g), 199 x 255 cm, 78 5/16 x 100 6/16 ins, 39 x 31 cm each print (199 x 255 cm overall)

Detail of La idea del Norte: hielos

Silvia Gruner, Nostalgia por la materia, 2013 48 digital prints on cotton paper, 30 x 30 cm, 11 3/4 x 11 3/4 in

Detail of Nostalgia por la materia

Installation view, Ver, 2024

Iñaki Bonillas, Trout Fishing in America, 2023, Pigmented print with carbon inks on cotton paper (Hahnemühle e Photo Rag, 308 gr) 60 x 60 cm, 23 5/8 x 23 5/8 in